Using the ignorance paradigm to teach lifelong learning skills

As work in professional disciplines becomes more 'knowledge-based' or 'informated', tertiary education needs to focus more on skills relevant to acquiring knowledge and less on transmitting current knowledge. Courses must also develop cognitive and self-management abilities for coping with the change and uncertainty that increasingly characterise knowledge work. There are few published examples of how such skills can be taught.

This paper describes work in progress on a course for promoting 'lifelong learning' skills in business students, based on the 'ignorance paradigm' developed by Anne Kerwin and others. This paradigm reframes professional performance from the textbook model of a highly skilled, successful 'master' to a more realistic one where doubt, confusion, failure and awareness of one's limitations are essential to learning. This paradigm has been successfully used in disciplines such as medicine and law.

We describe a learning skills course adaptable to a broad range of subjects in business teaching. The topics include: the changing realities of work; ignorance in professional performance; learning theory; self-management; skills for dealing with paradox and uncertainty; working collaboratively; and acknowledging values. How the course can be used in class, and how students might be motivated to use it out of class, are key issues for discussion.

Introduction

Many university courses seem not to recognise the substantial changes in the nature of professional and managerial work over the last 30 years. A large body of writing on organsations and work (eg Reich, 1992; Handy, 1994) describes dramatic changes affecting professional and managerial occupations:

• Work has become more 'informated' or knowledge-based, placing a premium on the ability to develop and evaluate knowledge (Reich, 1992). In contrast, university teaching often involves imparting knowledge that already exists in textbooks or libraries. Further, the 'shelf-life' of knowledge is decreasing: for example it is said the Dean of Medicine at Harvard tells his students at graduation ceremonies that 50% of their learning is already out of date.

• Jobs and careers are becoming shorter in response to structural and industrial relations changes, in both private and public sectors. Some writers even suggest the notions of 'career' and 'job' are now outdated, with the dominant mode becoming the self-managing entrepreneur (Bridges, 1996) or the 'portfolio' worker who mixes income and satisfaction from a variety of sources (Handy, 1994). That these changes affect professionals is shown by the many students in business courses seeking a career change from education, engineering, computing or science. And within business careers, our experience is that students are increasingly moving between specialisations. Such changes make learning important right across a working life.

• Work is increasingly organised around projects rather than long term roles as described in duty statements, and workers find themselves working in multi-disciplinary, self-managing teams.

• The complexity of work environments and the diversity of social groups mean professionals are increasingly dealing with 'messy' or 'wicked' (unbounded and ill-structured) problems, where they will confront 'multiple realities' and paradoxical needs (Mitroff & Linstone, 1995).

Aims of the course

• An attitude of openness to learning; valuing doubt and error; and awareness of ignorance.
• Self-direction and self-management.
• An understanding of the nature of learning, and its role in work.
• Ability to identify assumptions behind the 'framing' or 'setting' of workplace problems.
• Processes for dealing with issues where incompatible or paradoxical perspectives need resolving.
• Collaboration.
• Principles of ethics.

The course is designed for self-study - we have not relied on students finding a curriculum in which these skills are systematically embedded, nor lecturers knowledgeable in these areas. Although we are trialing it as a part of our teaching in several units, it relies as much on student motivation to learn work-relevant skills as teacher direction. An ideal outcome might be where individual teachers incorporate one or two topics in each subject, given evidence that generic skills are more effectively learned in connection with course content (eg Candy, Crebbit & O'Leary, 1994). However, judging by initial feedback, many students are mature enough to gain value from self-study.

The course

• An overview, briefly explaining the significance of each topic and summarising the key concepts. To motivate further reading, this booklet is kept brief, makes extensive use of graphics, and generally looks unlike a textbook.

• A study guide, containing a discussion on each topic, in the style of an external course. It emphasises practical 'tools', though a theoretical background is needed for many. Readings and references for further study are included.

• A workbook. The study guide makes extensive reference to exercises to be done in a separate workbook, to keep study active and aid reflection on the application of the ideas.

Course theme: Ignorance in professional practice

The ignorance paradigm promotes a questioning approach to knowledge. It has been used in a number of disciplines to counter students' tendency to receive knowledge uncritically and to assume professional performance involves only mastery of the 'knowns'. Kerwin, Witte and colleagues have developed an array of stimulating activities to overturn the negative status of ignorance in medical teaching, including 'distinguished ignorami' - experts who talk about what they don't know - and activities where students seek what is unknown in the field.

We find this approach highly suited to the work business students will do in a world of complexity, change and uncertainty. At the beginning of the course we ask students to create an ignorance map concerning their workplace abilities, and to determine what sections of our course they will take (in the case of a reader not doing the course in class). Another activity involves a map of professional ignorance, stimulating exploration of the boundaries of discipline knowledge.

As the ignorance paradigm dictates, students are asked to question even the material in the guide, for example by supplying counterpoints in the workbook. This helps to relate the course to their work or life experience. A theme implicit in much writing on professional work, made explicit by Schšn (1987) amongst others, is that knowledge is highly contextualised and personalised. We take the role of this course to be helping students discover tools and concepts that work in their circumstances, rather than espousing generalised principles that all should follow.

Other course content

• Self-management / self-direction. Post-university learning is frequently self-directed, in the sense of Candy's (1991) definition of 'autodidaxy' as "the individual, noninstitutional pursuit of learning opportunities in the natural societal setting" (in our case primarily, though not exclusively, a work setting). While the opportunity to practice self-direction is limited in undergraduate study, we can promote self-management, through the use of goal setting and contracts. Exercises in this section place study and work in the context of life interests and goals. We discuss reflection as a key aspect of self-management of learning, and promote the use of diaries. Other techniques used to provoke reflective thinking and self-awareness include rich pictures (a graphical tool for reflection and systems thinking), guided imagery, metaphors ("while doing X I can imagine myself as.."), and self-assessment questionnaires on goals and values.

  Though presented as tools for professional practice, students are encouraged to use them in study. In classes testing of the course, part of the assessment is based on a reflective diary.

• Learning theory. In this section we want learners to understand the nature of adult learning, and their own learning preferences. Topics covered include the nature of learning as a broadly based and life-long activity; self-direction and andragogy; individual learner characteristics; motivation; teaching paradigms; and learning preferences. We also cover learning cycle theory which describes a cyclical process based on four stages in learning, including reflection and experience. The exercises include the Learning Styles Questionnaire (LSQ) as a self-awareness tool.

• Identifying assumptions. This forms a critical part of learning at work according to many authors (eg Argyris, Putnam & Smith, 1985; Mitroff & Linstone, 1995). We discuss the way working knowledge is constructed through past experience and social processes, using concepts such as scripts, schemata and frames. Argyris et al's (1985) work on defensiveness in organisational reasoning is used to show how emotions and social influences prevent examining assumptions. Case studies show how failing to examine assumptions has lead to well known political and engineering disasters. A variety of exercises give practice in reframing personal and work problems. Three tools used for identifying assumptions are the ladder of inference, the left hand column, and action maps (Argyris et al, 1985).

• Dealing with multiple realities, dilemma and paradox. Another key feature of workplace learning involves resolving discordant ideas, for example those arising when people approach an issue from different perspectives. Techniques presented include Mitroff and Linstone's (1995) technical, organisational and personal (TOP) perspective analysis, and their treatment of dialectical methods. Another characteristic of contemporary work problems is the prevalence of dilemma and paradox, due to rapid change in values or the collision between values arising from diversity in organisations and markets. We examine Hampden-Turner's (1990) procedure for resolving dilemmas, and look at Eastern approaches to living with paradox (eg Handy, 1994). Activities invite practice at resolving both work and personal problems.

• Collaborating. In the emerging work environment, old leader/follower dichotomies are replaced by more collaborative arrangements, and this section discusses self-managing teams. Exercises invite students to reflect on their models of collaboration in university and work settings, and to see the process of collaborating as an important area for future learning.

• Values. In this section we ask our learners to explicitly recognise the role of values in all aspects of life, including their careers and the organisations in which they work. The discussion covers the concept of virtue and its application to organisations; values and cultural relativity; and the principles of moral judgement, including distributive justice, individual freedom, eternal law, categorical imperative, and utilitarianism.

Summary

Footnote

1. Knowles wrote "the greatest danger to the survival of civilization today is not atomic warfare, not environmental pollution, not the population explosion, not the depletion of natural resources, and not any of the other contemporary crises, but the underlying cause of them all - the accelerating obsolescence of man (sic)... The only hope now seems to be a crash program to retool the present generation of adults with the competencies required to function adequately in a condition of perpetual change. This is the deep need - the awesome challenge - presented to the adult educator by modern society."

References

Bridges, W. (1995). Jobshift. London: Nicholas Brealey Publishing.

Candy, P. Crebert, G. & O'Leary, J. (1994). Developing lifelong learners through undergraduate education. AGPS: NBEET Commissioned Report 28.

Candy, P. C. (1991). Self direction for lifelong learning: A comprehensive guide to theory and practice. SF: Jossey Bass.

Hampden-Turner, C. (1990). Charting the corporate mind: From dilemma to strategy.

Handy, C. (1994). The age of paradox. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

Kerwin, A. (1993). None too solid: Medical ignorance. Knowledge: Creation, Diffusion, Utilisation, 15(2), 166-185.

Knowles. M. S. (1970). The modern practice of adult education: Andragogy versus pedagogy. NY: Association Press.

Mitroff, I. I. & Linstone, H. A. (1995). The unbounded mind: Breaking the chains of traditional business thinking. NY: OUP.

Reich, R. (1992). The work of nations. NY: Vintage.

Schoen, D. A. (1987). Educating the reflective practitioner: Toward a new design for teaching and learning in the professions. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Standen, P. & Brown, A. (1994). Undergraduate Management Education: The Views of the Consumers. Paper presented at the Australian New Zealand Academy of Management Annual Conference, Wellington.